José Matias Alves holds a degree in Romanic Philology from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (1978), a master’s degree in Educational Sciences from the University of Minho (1992) and a PhD in Educational Sciences from Universidade Católica Portuguesa (2008).

He is an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Faculdade de Educação e Psicologia at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He is also the coordinator of the PhD in Educational Sciences and an integrated researcher at CEDH.

He was consultant to the Ministry of Education within the "Autonomy and Curriculum Flexibility" Program. He is the chairman of the Fiscal Council of the Portuguese Society of Educational Sciences. Coordinator of the Committee for the Evaluation of Final Scientific Reports (RCF) of Educational Sciences of the Foundation for Science and Technology (2019-2022). It has 98 published or organized books and 24 published book chapters. 16 scientific articles published in journals, 37 texts published in newspapers or magazines, 4 editorial entries in magazines.